This is the story of Glengarry County, a small county at the eastern perimeter of Ontario, portrayed through the lives of many of the men and women who were born there, lived there, died there. This part of Ontario dates its beginnings from the arrival of United Empire Loyalists, supplemented by immigrants direct from the British Isles and Ireland, and soon complemented by francophones looking for land of their own to till. At the beginning life was hard; forests had to be cleared to have arable land, and there was very little of what we call infrastructure (a world without roads). We read in this book about these early settlers and the succeeding generations who strove to make Glengarry a better place. About this time the North West Company, a major player in the fur trade, was formed in Montreal. The fur trade was the main commercial activity in Canada’s early days and in pursuit of this trade much of North America was explored and mapped. Several of the North West Company partners developed a close association with Glengarry, acquiring property and retiring here. Thus from early days there were Glengarrians engaged in the world beyond the county boundaries, and one finds in this book the stories of many whose lives were built on this tradition.

Typically, a dictionary of biography is a compilation of the lives of personages written by authors with particular knowledge of their subjects, and as noted below, Royce MacGillivray has made several such contributions. What makes this book exceptional is that Royce MacGillivray is the sole author of all the entries, the product of decades of research and, obviously, meticulous and well-organized record keeping. He hails from McCrimmon West, Prescott County, just outside Glengarry County. After Alexandria High School and Glengarry District High School, he earned his B.A. at Queen’s University and his A.M. and Ph.D. at Harvard University, being awarded the DeLancey K. Jay Prize for best doctoral dissertation on American or British institutions. His academic career, from lecturer to full professor, was at the University of Waterloo until his retirement in 1996. Among his books, and with particular relevance to Glengarry, are A History of Glengarry, with Ewan Ross (Belleville, Ontario:Mika, 1979), and Bibliography of Glengarry County (Alexandria, Ontario:Glengarry Historical Society, 1996). Other published articles include entries in the Dictionary of Canadian Biography, the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography and the Canadian Encyclopedia. He was editor, 1978-1981, of Ontario History, the journal of the Ontario Historical Society.

From the cornucopia of personages skilfully assembled herein by Royce MacGillivray it would be foolhardy to identify any highlights. Romantics can read about Finnan “The Buffalo” McDonald, who rassled a wounded bison to a standstill in hand-to-horn combat, or John “Caribou” Cameron, who had his wife shipped home in an alcohol-filled casket by way of Panama (before the canal) so that she would be buried in Glengarry. Every county has politicians. Glengarry begat John Sandfield Macdonald, the first premier of Ontario, and elected William Lyon Mackenzie King, prime minister of Canada, after he lost his seat in a general election. Clifford Clark, from Martintown, was a highly esteemed federal minister of finance, 1932 to 1952, during the Depression, World War II, and the post-war years. Sir Edward Peacock, a director of the Bank of England and financial counsellor to to the Royal Family, was born at St. Elmo, as was author Ralph Connor. Glengarry’s notable writers include Dorothy Dumbrille and Grace Campbell.

The Glengarry Historical Society is privileged to be associated with this exceptional project of Royce MacGillivray in compiling the Dictionary of Glengarry Biography. Thanks and appreciation are also expressed to Dane Lanken, David G. Anderson and Allan J. Macdonell whose work made possible the transformation of the manuscript into the nicely bound book you now have in your hands.

Basil McCormick Glengarry Historical Society

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